Puppet Delight

I was attending a traditional puppet show at cultural hotel in Singapore. Since I read a news of Myanmar puppet trope is going to participate ASEAN puppet festival, I was eager to view it. Yesterday, I got an email invitation for a puppet show sponsored by Myanmar community via my friend. Without delaying, I straight away register for booking a seat. Admission is free and there are 120 seats available and first come first serve basis. When I reach the venue, about 50 attendance already seated. The show was excellent as two superstar performing group regroup and entertain. The traditional musician is two academy winner and puppet artists are well known experienced. Combination of two superstar make the show went wild among audience. Sadly, the hall is not full house due to weekday program and last minute notification. Perhaps some people might have underestimate the quality of show due to free admission. Anyway, we find it worth for time.

Other than puppet show, we were introduced the history of Myanmar puppet by founder of Htwe Oo Myanmar Puppet Trope. I am impressive to learn that founder is not come from cultural back ground family. His careers was marine and he last worked as second mate officer on oversea ship. It tell how much he is entrepreneurship with new sector. His ambition was quite simple. He wanted to conserve our traditional puppet by establishing a performing group. The puppet was being ignored and artists are struggling with their profession. Hence, he compiled some famous artists and founded the group to deliver the message of our culture among locals and foreigners. Since then, his group has been invited to several countries for their performance. We applauds his effort in nurturing the ancient culture which is facing dangerous from missing among younger generation.

He continues to explain how puppets are made briefly together with some parts for easier understanding. To be honest, I never watched puppet show before. I however used to watch puppet show at annual festival. But they are different type of puppets which are handled by stick beneath. Last night puppet were controlled by strings which apparent more complicated to handle. According to founder, our puppets history can be found on the fact of Ava dynasty which has been on the planet for 600 years back. This is exact evidence and its original time could be even much earlier than that. He said, puppets are made of royal woods. It cannot be done by ordinary woods which deteriorate easily. Hence, puppets in past were made by royal woods so called "ya ma nay thar" in Burmese. Puppet consists of several parts which make resemble to real human being. Before craft to several body parts, the raw royal woods is put in the water so that craftman can decide which portion should be face and back. Also amazing secret rule is that all puppet must have their own private part just like human being. He continue to explain that puppets are considered as a real human being among artists. They strongly believe that each puppet has soul and treated them as a person. They must be worn and paint properly. The paints are not instant factory made one. They need to do customized home made one by crashing one kind of flower seeds called "kant ku san" in Myanmar. The estimated time to make one puppet is one week, according to him.

In ancient Myanmar time, there were two major classes in culture. One is higher and another called lower. Higher class performance made on stage while lower performed on ground. In this regard, traditional Myanmar puppet is considered higher class performance. Because it include all walks of artistes, such as paint, crafting, clothes, music, skillful controller, etc. By adapting puppet, we already maintain or encourage all other arts. That is why we should support the highly valued puppet not to disappear from our culture. There are several type of puppet in the world. But Myanmar's puppet is the most resemble with real human being due to its skeleton. Our puppet can perform like real performer. We witness last night and agree with him. The oldest puppet master is 75 years old and the youngest performer is only 9 years schoolboy. The traditional music made the event more grand. The leader is amazingly played one classical music after another. Given his age at 60 years, we are really surprised by his skill. In brief, we all had a unforgettable night. I just feel that we have a lot things to show the world in term of culture. The show is end by lucky draw, of which I was luckily got second prize. What an amazing night for me like that? I witness world-class show and went back home with second prize. For that, I paid nothing and this is called Myanmar hospitality which cannot be found anywhere in this world. 

Thank you organizer and sponsor to make that puppet show is made successfully. Htwe Oo Myanmar is participating ASEAN puppet festival on today and tomorrow. I sincerely hope they will grab some award for their performance. Wish them go back home with prize just like me yesternight. May all Myanmar citizen able to value our own culture which has very deep root in history. Then, you will feel that there is no reason to shy being a Myanmar Citizen.